Monday 22 March 2010 06.40 EDT
First published on Monday 22 March 2010 06.40 EDT

Chillies are a curious fruit. Perhaps no other ingredient inspires such boastful machismo, such eye-watering devotion. Witness the packs of men (I use that noun advisedly) in curry houses, baying for "the hottest one you've got", or the 'extreme' chilli-eating contests which pop up periodically on the features pages. Even I, historically more likely to order a korma than a vindaloo, found myself competing in a capsicum endurance test in Mexico City a few years ago – reluctantly at first, but when it became clear that my challenger believed me to be an American, national pride reared its ugly head. I may not have known my pasillas from my poblanos, but no one accuses a people weaned on lime pickle of not being able to take the heat.Such obsession is always going to beget myth and misunderstanding. It's common knowledge, for example, that the smaller the chilli, the hotter it will be. This is true with regard to the varieties commonly available in this country, as anyone who has ever bitten into a bird's eye in their green curry will attest. Smaller chillies have a higher proportion of pith and seeds. Bear in mind, however, that the bulbous bhut jolokia, allegedly the world's hottest chilli, can grow to the length of a credit card, and the cayenne, which is no slouch when it comes to capsaicin content, can top 30cm. These are not mistakes you want to make.

Bird's eye chillies. Photograph: Felicity Cloake

Having scoured my local market for materials, I arranged half a Scotch bonnet (the hottest chilli I could lay my hands on) and half a bird's eye on a plate, took a deep breath, and a bite out of each; seeds, pith and all. There was a second of ignorant bliss with both – that smug 'what's all the fuss about?' feeling – then the heat hit. The little bird's eye was fiery – but bearable. The brightly coloured bonnet, however, made me cry. Briefly, but still, those tear ducts don't lie, and it was easily twice the size.

Colour can also deceive. Trustworthy sorts like Delia and Nigel Slater assure me that green chillies are, as a rule, slightly hotter than their red equivalents – yet others, including Rosemary Brissenden, author of the indispensable South-East Asian Food, which has its fair share of chilli recipes, claim the opposite. Michael Michaud, of Peppers By Post, explains that the older a chilli is, the more capsaicin it will contain – and he should know, having developed the stonkingly hot Dorset Naga, which was a cheery pillar-box red when its heat was measured for posterity. As most chillies turn from green to red as they ripen, red ones should, in theory, be hotter, although obviously this will vary according to the individual fruit.

What is certainly true is that riper chillies are sweeter, which may make them seem less aggressively hot than their green counterparts – and when you're dealing with a real firebrand, you'll be lucky to distinguish between the two. When I compared a red and a green bird's eye of roughly the same size, I found the flavours differed – fresh and bitter, as opposed to sweet and fiery – but it would have taken a more experienced taster than me to judge which of them was hotter. To be honest, they both sent me rushing to the fridge for a glass of milk.

Chilli seeds. Photograph: Felicity Cloake

Having meekly followed the advice of countless recipes threatening dire consequences for those too lazy to deseed their chillies, I'd always assumed that the seeds were the hottest part of the fruit. I discovered, in the course of eating a good number of them for this blog, that chilli seeds are pretty characterless once you've rinsed off their outer coating of capsaicin – so much so, in fact, that you could eat them by the bowlful, should you be so inclined. Deseeding works because the real capsaicin hit is concentrated in the innocuous-looking white tissue that attaches them to the fruit: try the pith of a Scotch bonnet, and weep. Literally, and copiously.

As true chilliheads have probably already concluded, I'm not the kind of person who seeks out heat – there are no bottles of Butt-Twister sauce in my cupboard. But thanks to Fuchsia Dunlop I've developed a slightly masochistic taste for Sichuan food (most famous characteristic, according to Fuchsia: "fiery spiciness"). Hot and Numbing Beef, Fragrant and Spicy Duck Tongue, Pock-Marked Lady's Tofu – I've embraced them all with greedily outstretched arms. Much as I love them, however, I haven't yet worked out how to enjoy them without attracting a crowd of amused waiting staff offering tissues and sympathy. I know that, in theory, water is the worst option, but the temporary relief it offers is almost irresistible. I need to settle this question once and for all, in the dignified privacy of my own kitchen – what is the best way to quench chilli heat?

I decide upon the unambiguously named Chicken with Chillies (La Zi Ji) and Boiled Beef Slices in a Fiery Sauce (Shui Zhu Niu Rou) for my evening of spice. My shopping list starts 'big bag chillies, chilli bean paste, chilli oil'. The woman behind the counter looks at me as if I am slightly mad as she rings these purchases through, along with a gaily-coloured layered jelly of indeterminate flavour for pudding. Measuring out the ingredients back home, I begin to see Fuchsia's point about the chicken: "The first time you encounter this dish," she says, "it appears terrifyingly spicy, the cubes of chicken surrounded by improbable quantities of blood-red chillies … " The beef, meanwhile, is described as "sensationally hot, a dish based on lashings of chilli bean sauce and finished off with a sizzling pile of ground chillies and lip-tingling Sichuan pepper". As I snip my way through the dauntingly large heap of peppers, I begin to feel slightly anxious. I also, naturally, forget to keep my fingers away from my eyes, causing a brief hiatus in production.

After preparing vast quantities of dangerously spicy ingredients, I carefully lay out my first-aid kit: a bowl of steamed rice, a plate of cucumber slices, a bowl of plain yoghurt, and some of the tooth-aching jelly, having read somewhere that, as the Scoville scale pits capsaicin against sugared water, using sweetness to counter spice makes sense. I also add some cold beer, just in case.

The chicken, which is 70% chilli, does indeed look frightening. Although I'm aware that the chillies are only intended to add fragrance to the dish, I encourage my boyfriend to eat a few in the interests of research. Chew them well, I urge, jabbing a couple with my own chopsticks. Once I'm satisfied that we've got the measure of our foe (eye-watering), I present the plate of cucumber. We both chew grimly on a couple of pieces. "Nice and cool," is the verdict, "but it soon fades." More chillies down the hatch, then a spoonful of yoghurt. He thinks this is better, but I find it inflames the situation, making the chilli flavour more pronounced.

"Are we going to die tonight?" he asks plaintively, as I take him through rice and jelly, before offering him a reward of IPA and introducing the ominously sizzling beef for a second round of testing. The results? He was torn between the yoghurt and the rice, whereas I found the latter's heavenly blandness a far more effective fire blanket for the chilli. We both enjoyed the slightly surreal sensation of spicy jelly, but agree that it distracted us from the heat, rather than helping to disperse it. And the beer? Well, it tasted nice …

I'm not sure why the yoghurt didn't work for me – the theory (that capsaicin oil isn't soluble in water, but will bind easily with another fat, like dairy or even peanut butter) is persuasive, but somehow it made the bitterness of the chilli more obvious. The rice, like a naan bread, helps to absorb the oil, yet it lacks the obvious cooling effect of yoghurt, so I'm baffled as to why it seemed more effective. As yoghurt isn't widely available in Sichuan restaurants, however, I'll be tempering my greed with rice from now on – and attempting to build up a tolerance worth boasting about.

Are you a chilli fiend, or does hot food leave you cold? What's your preferred variety – are you a fresno fan, or a naga nut? And how do you like to prepare it?